Hope Springs Eternal
by Glastea
Summary: [PostX3] As everyone attempts to recover from 'The Phoenix Fiasco', the discovery of Scott at Alkali Lake brings everyone back with a bump and what's going on in Egypt?
1. Chapter 1

**Hope Springs Eternal**

A/N: Wow. A post-X3, from me, of all people. Bet you never saw that one coming. After doing a search around LJ, I discovered a hysterical script of how Scott might make his way back home (alive and well, I might add), so I thought, yeah, let's make myself feel better about the third film- which I saw as a travesty.

I'm using a lot of comic influence in this one: Scott's background, for example. Oh, and the Tudor England reference is kind of a homage towards Scott's time walking thingie, which he picks up at one point or another in the comics. Also, the writers said that the case study Moira gives is actually Xavier's twin brother (is that not a pointer towards an X4?) Enjoy, and have a merry Christmas.

**0-0-0-0-0**

It was a week after the disastrous events with the Phoenix, and Logan suddenly realised that they'd missed something. Missed something major.

After thinking about it for a while, he waited for Storm to have finished her classes for the day before going to find her, and explaining the thing he'd just noticed.

"You know, we found Scott's glasses, but we didn't search the other side of the lake," he said thoughtfully, leaning against the doorframe. Storm looked up from the marking she was doing.

"Logan, Scott's gone. They're all gone. There's nothing we can do about it now. We can't go dwelling on the past."

But Logan stayed adamant. "I'm going back to look. You coming, or not?"

Ororo sighed. "I've got things to do, Logan; I can't go out on wild goose chases. Go if you want; I'm not going to stop you." Logan considered for a minute, and left the room.

Everyone had lost hope in Cyclops after Jean 'died'. Even the Professor saw him as changed, but the Cyke he knew had stayed underneath. He just needed time, and it seemed that all those who should have recognised that, didn't. What had happened to the Professor, too? After Jean died the first time, he'd taken more of a shift than One-Eye had. Both had obviously been hit hard by her passing, and now both were gone, seemingly. Both disintegrated. Or, he knew that the Professor had been, but they'd got no trace of Cyclops ever having died. Just supposition, a pair of glasses with no owner, and a tombstone in the graveyard, further down in the grounds.

However, Logan was determined to search the other side of the lake. It was respectful; to actually try and bury whatever remains were left, or maybe, he was still there, not dead. But then, how did he know? This was just wild speculation.

Going upstairs, he headed along the corridor, to 'their' room. With everything happening so fast, they hadn't had time to clear it out yet, and doing so was really concreting the fact that the pair was gone. On the bedside table lay Scott's visor, and so he took it, putting it securely in the top pocket of his leather jacket. After all, he could still hope. It might be fools hope, but he had a feeling about this. An odd feeling.

It was a choice between one of the bikes or a car, but Logan took a Bentley. Just in case he did find something, it'd be easier to carry it in a car than on a motorcycle.

This was a fool's errand, and he recognised that. He just needed to be sure.

Roaring down the drive (someone had obviously fooled around with turbo chargers on this car too; was there no exception?); he took the turn north, and started on the long drive to Canada.

**0-0-0-0-0**

It took him a day of driving to reach the lake. A day to try and convince himself that there was nothing there, and to stop jumping at the anticipation. After all, without Scott, it wasn't worth being at the mansion. No one to annoy especially, there wasn't any satisfaction in taking one of his bikes, and even Danger Room practice had lost its allure if you didn't have an uptight team leader to piss off.

After sleeping overnight in the car (not too hard, you just had to set the front seat back as far as it would go and get comfortable, as sleeping on the back seat never seemed to work), he took advantage of the early morning light to try and search. Probably search in vain, but have a look anyway. Then he might be able to go home in peace, and get on with life. They hadn't even held a funeral for him yet: according to Ro, there were no parents to inform, and his younger brother wouldn't remember him (he was five when the pair were separated), and Logan wasn't surprised, suddenly, why Scott had taken everything so hard. To lose another person you loved had to be tough, even for someone who'd had to cope with it before.

With renewed venom, he began to search. There had to something here. Anything. Anything to set his mind at ease.

There wasn't a scent of death around the lake, which he found somewhat comforting. He'd be able to tell instinctively- he knew the scent better than most. It didn't smell like someone had died here, and that alone gave him hope.

And then, half an hour later, he smelt it. Menthol and cardamom. Scott's scent. Although gravity was acting as it should again (how Jean had managed to defy physics, he didn't know, and even if told, he doubted he'd understand), he was easy to spot. The man on the rocky outcrop, lying stock still, as if dead. And yet, he wasn't. There was a faint pulse at his wrist, and, pulling out a claw, you could see his breath, faintly condensing on the metal. There was warmth inside him still, and that gave Logan more hope than ever before. Although obviously comatose, maybe he might wake up. Maybe.

**0-0-0-0-0**

He sped the journey home. One hundred and thirty down the highway, plus the turbo charger in action for as long as it could sustain itself. However, by the time he'd got to a place where they had bigger roads, it was 1 AM, so it didn't seem that bad. But then, having someone who seemed to be vegetating in your car was worse, and he was doing this all for him. He didn't want Scottie dead. No one did.

But then, when he finally reached the mansion (home, once more), it was six o'clock, and no one was awake. This was more important than beauty sleep though, so he carefully put his quarry over his shoulder, and tried to be a good pack horse as he went upstairs, to the third floor. Resting the man he'd been carrying on the double bed that he'd shared with Jean, Logan's next priority was to get Ororo.

Knocking on her door, he waited patiently outside until she emerged, pulling on a dressing gown as she went.

"Logan, it's early. Have you heard of sleep?" He pulled her by the wrist out of her room, and down the hall, steering her into the room at the end of the corridor.

She took one look at the figure lying motionless inside, and had to be caught as she fainted.

"My God," she said, looking at him intently after she awoke, around ten seconds later. "Where was he? We need to call Hank."

And so, Hank was called, and he rushed from Washington to Westchester. Making use of his medical degree, soon enough their unresponsive figure looked more like a cyborg than Cyclops, hooked up to machine after machine. They beeped quietly in the background, showing what I was told to be a regular heartbeat, but no brainwaves to speak of: or, at least, they were extremely faint.

"We can't afford to be slack with this," Hank said, sitting on an examination bed in the Med-bay. "Scott has been in a coma once before, and although he did come out of it after some time, he shouldn't have done. By all rights, he probably won't emerge this time. We'll have to be careful."

They made arrangements to keep watch over the patient- Hank decided to stay at the mansion for the future, at least for a month or so, to see if there were any developments, but he wasn't hopeful. But Logan kept hope up. After all, someone had to.

"We shouldn't tell the students," Storm said, considering the situation. "We can't get their hopes up." Although a highly serious, maths textbook wielding teacher, the younger population of the school respected (and liked) Cyclops. He was like their figurehead; many of the students not having family any more, he was the older brother, sometimes playing 'dad' to the youngest. He even apologised for having to give tests ("You hate doing them, and I hate marking them. We're even. You have forty minutes from… now") and Logan had seen witty comments written in Rogue's math notebook. You'd think he actually liked having to force kids to do a subject they hated (although he'd heard whispers that the only reason some of the girls enjoyed Calc was because he had to turn around to write on the board, and he had a nice ass), or that he was a naturally good teacher. Probably both.

However, when it was Logan's time to watch over him, rather than reading, he'd watch him, making sure that he was comfortable, even talk to him at times. He didn't quite know why; after all, he'd never believed that comatose patients could hear you. But he was clinging onto hope: even a month after, when it seemed impossible that he'd wake up now.

It wasn't that they were going to switch off the life support machine, as he wasn't on one. He could breathe by himself (no oxygen mask required) and, not as expected, he was still alive.

"Scooter, what are we going to do with you?" He said, almost absentmindedly, having just changed shifts with Hank. "Keep fighting, kid. Hang on in there for us." He briefly ran a finger down his cheek, and sat down in the customary armchair, watching the figure. He'd become almost fond of the vegetating man. It was the 'protect the pack' impulse he got- the face he was looking at wasn't somewhat obscured by the red glasses it normally wore, and looked young and vulnerable. How old was Cyclops? Definitely younger than Ororo, by the looks of it. When he'd asked, he got the answer '27 going on forty', almost as a joke, from Hank. If that was true, then he didn't act like it. Christ, if Summers was really 27, he should, by all rights, going out on the town and getting drunk, not composedly telling him that he didn't drink 'cat piss' any time he was offered beer.

However, as he watched, one of the machines began to beep faster, become more insistent, and he couldn't work out which one it was. His heart rate had got generally stronger over the last few weeks- a saving grace if nothing else.

Staring at the machine in horror, Logan followed the cord that attached it to Scott, and discovered it plugged into his temple. Shit.

Grabbing the walkie talkie that had been put in place for emergencies (it was three way to make things quicker), Logan held the button down. "Storm, get your ass down here. Something's happening and I don't know what." Scooting closer to the bed, he took Scott's hand and held it, hope upon hope. He didn't know how he'd handle a death-bed scene.

However, as he watched, Scott's shallow breathing became stronger, his chest rising and falling visibly. Behind him, he could just about hear someone in high heels hurtling down the stairs- to him; it was like someone was hammering on the floor loudly, and it rang through his head as he listened. His attention, however, was then diverted back to the person lying in front of him as his hand got crushed.

"Don't open the eyes, Cyke. I don't feel like getting crushed today."

"Logan? What the…. What happened?" Ah. Short term memory loss? "Where the fuck am I?"

"You're at the mansion, in the med-bay, kid. And calm down. Ro'll be here any sec-" Speak of the devil, the sliding doors retracted, revealing one flustered (not at all her normal, composed self) Ororo, who had obviously thought the worse.

"Oh, Scott," she breathed. "We thought you were dead."

"Well, that makes three of us," he said. "Found Jean, nearly got killed by her, then somehow ended up in Tudor England, for some reason, then everything went black, and now I'm here. Weird."

"We need to get Hank in here," Ororo said, taking the arm of the chair Logan had (by this time, he'd withdrawn his hand from Scott's), "and someone needs to get your glasses, or visor. Plus, telling the students that you're alive…"

"Good point," he replied. Eyes scrunched tightly shut (a reflex reaction by now), he propped himself up on his elbows and pulled off a machine sensor with disgust, seemingly. "Did you clear my room out?"

"No, we hadn't got around to it yet. Other things came up, and..." Ororo couldn't finish her sentence.

"She's gone, isn't she?" Scott said quietly. Storm nodded, for all the help it was (it wasn't like he could see the gesture), and Logan took his hand again, for support.

"Yeah, kid. She's gone." The reaction that he was given was much different from the one he'd expected.

"It wasn't Jean, you know. The Phoenix was an evil creature, completely out of control. It was kind of inevitable that this would happen, but Jean always said to blast her if she 'flipped out' on me again. It's time to get life back on track, and actually being allowed out of here would a good start." He tried to get up, but Storm pushed him back down again.

"You're not going anywhere until Hank's had a look at you. Logan, go and make the call, and get Scott some eyewear. Please." He left the room as Ororo took the chair he'd just been sitting in.

"What else has happened? Where's the professor?" Storm gulped, and began to fill him in.

**0-0-0-0-0**

Scott didn't continue in his previous mindset once Hank had let him out into the outside world. He was more like the old Mr Summers: just slightly quieter with the news that Professor Xavier had met the same fate as he almost had. The students had been somewhat confused: after all, they'd all been told that their maths teacher had been another casualty of Dr Grey going 'whacko', as Jubilee had once put it.

However, a phone call a week and a half after he'd been let out of the med-bay brought him back into higher spirits. Storm had taken many of the students out for a mall trip, Logan had been dragged with them by Rogue, and he'd been left in charge of the many pupils who were left.

He was sitting in his office, trying to catch up with a backload of marking that he'd had for quite some time (never mind the time when he'd been under) when Rahne came up, clutching the phone.

"It's someone who wanted Ms Munroe, Mr Summers, but I think you'll do, right?" She passed the phone to him as he rolled his eyes behind his glasses.

"Way to raise my self esteem, Rahne. Go on, go play with the others. I'll be out in a minute. He raised the phone to his ear and said in a business-like tone, "Good afternoon. Scott Summers here, who's speaking?"

It was an odd conversation, with a lot of accusations and the phrase 'but I was told that you were dead' popping up several times. It turned out the speaker was Dr. Moira McTaggart, who was phoning with the news that Professor Xavier wasn't dead, but had transferred his conscience into his twin brother, whom Moira had looked for years, as he had no higher conscience- something about Xavier having so much power in his mind yet the twin having none. Of course, finally, the phone on the other end of the line was passed to the posthumously deceased Professor, who was overjoyed to hear the news from the mansion, and said that he would be on the next flight home as soon as he could- walking, he assured, not in a wheelchair.

It had to be one of the strangest telephone calls you'd ever heard. Two men who were supposed to be deceased talking to each other, both alive and well.

"Well, I look forward to seeing you soon, Professor. Have a safe trip." He disconnected as soon as Storm and Logan popped their heads around the door.

"Well, guys, you're not going to believe this…"


	2. Chapter 2

**Hope Springs Eternal**

A/N: Hope Springs Eternal was, initially, supposed to be a single piece. However, as a plot line emerged from the depths of my imagination, I couldn't resist. I don't apologise for the fact that updates may take time to come: a lot of research will be taking place to make this work. Thanks to all those who reviewed last chapter, and I hope you enjoy the second installment.

**0-0-0-0-0**

It was 3 o'clock in the morning, and the phone began to ring from its post in the entrance hall downstairs. Logan woke up (being a horribly light sleeper), and swore that whoever was ringing, he'd find them and slit their throat. After all, he was actually having a good night's sleep -- for once.

Hotfooting it down the stairs in order to catch the call before it cut off, he grabbed the receiver and yanked it from its hook (thankfully, it was cordless, or it would have been broken by this point.) "Yeah? Call back later, bub."

He was about to slam it back down and go back to bed when he discovered it wasn't just any old person who was phoning.

"Logan, I do apologise, but this is somewhat important. Can I speak to Scott, please?" Logan sighed, and began to walk up the stairs, taking the phone with him.

"It's 3 AM, Wheels. We're all asleep, including Cyke. I don't know what time it is over there, but this isn't the time to call." However, it could be a time to annoy certain slumbering teachers by waking them for no apparent reason. No real love lost, even if he had found him nearly dead.

"Well, it's a perfectly reasonable hour to call in Scotland. I somehow managed to completely forget about the time difference; I am human, after all. We all err at times. I just need to discuss travel arrangements with him." Logan finally made it to the third floor and tried to make as little noise as he could down the hallway, to Scott and J-- ... no, just Scott's bedroom.

Swinging open the door, there was no one to be seen, but underneath the duvet was a mound-like shape that looked like someone had curled up in a ball with every intent to go into permanent hibernation. Logan sighed, sat on the edge of the mattress, and poked it, aiming for what he thought was a shoulder, but couldn't be entirely sure. Almost spontaneously, an arm shot out from under the covers, scraping towards his bedside table for the pair of glasses that lay next to the lamp (wait... he wasn't wearing them? What happened if he blew the place down by accident?). Logan swiped them from their place on the side and placed them in the hand, which grasped them tightly and withdrew back under the duvet. Seconds later, an obviously groggy Scott Summers emerged, sitting up and obviously not amused. Stowing something inside the bedside table's drawer, he checked the alarm clock, turned and glared (or, as much as one could when their eyes were concealed).

"It's 3 o'clock, _Wolverine. _Ever heard of sleep?"

"It's Chuck." He handed the phone over, and watched him intently as he shuffled backwards to lean on the headboard, running a hand through his hair absentmindedly before he began to talk. Of course, curiosity killed the Wolverine (what the hell would you be holding in bed?), and he went inside the bedside drawer to find a pair of ruby quartz goggles lying there. Holding them up, he turned to the younger man and raised a sceptic eyebrow.

Scott, in reply, flipped the bird at him, and continued with the conversation.

"Nothing: Logan's just found another piece of my eyewear to laugh at. Hang on a second; I just need to sort something out." He covered the mouthpiece with his hand, removing the phone from his ear, and spoke directly to the man just getting comfortable on the end of his bed. "Logan, do me a favour and go; I'd rather have a private conversation here."

"What if I want to listen in?" Quite frankly, Logan couldn't be bothered to leave; he was settling in nicely, and there was plenty of room. After all, who got the double bed?

"Fine; Logan, do me a favour and fuck off." The words coming out of Summers' mouth, of all people's, was simply too funny to hear, and Logan got up, trying not to laugh, before exiting the room. Removing his hand from the mouthpiece, Scott picked up the phone again and got slightly more comfortable. "Sorry; had to get rid of a gremlin. You were saying?"

Getting out of bed, he grabbed his dressing gown from the hook on the door (noticing that Jean's was still next it somewhat woefully: yes, he was pretending to be absolutely peachy, but things like that still made him feel like he'd been shot through the chest and was still bleeding heavily), and headed down the corridor in the opposite direction from Logan's bedroom, pulling the towelling item on as he went.

"Well, it's travelling. I wanted to hear your opinion, Cyclops; I can either get a commercial air flight, or you could come and collect me, if you wish." Finally reaching the kitchen, Scott positioned the phone between his shoulder and chin and began to make coffee -- no point trying to get back to sleep now, he'd never manage it.

"Your choice, professor. It really does depend on whether you want the in-flight luxury and the comfort of first class, or whether you'd prefer spending less time in the air and no long drive home from the airport, plus me being pilot. If the latter, I could come and collect you now."

"In your pyjamas? No, no. I couldn't possibly- in all truth I should have hung up and left this until later. You really should be in bed, Scott; you have classes to teach this morning." Scott smiled, and withdrew a stool from beneath one of the counters.

"I think a good shot of coffee should sort that out, sir. I couldn't get back to sleep now anyway. How's Saturday for your entirely empty schedule?"

"Well, it being Thursday... morning, that sounds absolutely fine; I shall inform Moira as soon as I can. It seems somewhat odd; not talking to you over Cerebro." The last sentence sounded somewhat wistful, and brought Scott back home with a bump. If Xavier had transferred his conscience (or whatever, he wasn't entirely sure he understood how that worked...), would he still have his mutation?

"Professor... I hate be blunt, but are you still telepathic? Nothing's happened since... well, you know... the Phoenix fiasco?"

From the other end of the line, there was a laugh, and he relaxed somewhat.

"I was fearing the same thing, but luckily not. As I'm sure you know, relations who both possess the X-Factor often have similar mutations; and I and my brother both possess the necessary talents to use telepathy. I'm not quite sure whether it will be at the same level of my previous skills, but we'll have to see. Meanwhile, I was informed by Storm that you have something new to add onto your list of hidden talents; she wasn't quite sure what."

Scott thought about it quickly, before realising what he was referring to. "Oh, yes... that. It's hardly anything, I just happened to find myself in some kind of 'ye olde' Alkali Lake, that I thought was Tudor England. I'm not sure how it occurred, truth be told, but I'm not planning to investigate further." The kettle boiled at that point, so he poured coffee and thankfully took a gulp, moving from the stool to cross-legged on the kitchen counter. "So, if Saturday's fine, what time do you want me at Muir Island; GMT?"

**0-0-0-0-0**

The conversation continued accidentally for nearly another two hours, until Scott had consumed three cups of coffee and Xavier had to go. Two more days, and then everyone would be home. Or, nearly everyone, anyway.

_Stop dwelling on it, Summers, that'll get you nowhere. _Quite at the spur of the moment, in pyjamas and bare feet (he never had got round to getting hold of a pair of slippers), he slammed his now empty coffee cup on the worktop, and headed outside, across the grounds, to Jean's grave.

In the early morning twilight, the spot looked glorious: bathed in light and shadow. It was almost perfect, considering what could be termed as the dark side of her had effectively caused her to die (or be killed: and he didn't know quite what to think about Logan after that, except what she'd told him if she 'flipped out' again), but that was just the cynic in him coming to the fore.

They'd had time to remove the un-needed graves, too. He and Logan had done it: somehow, they were getting along slightly better, even if they still had the odd argument about the stupidest things. They'd put them in the large shed near the boathouse: because it didn't feel quite right to destroy them. They'd both agreed that, and although they had had to get Peter to carry the larger of the two (they'd tried and failed), he'd carried the tombstone with his name on it without complaint.

He had an odd memory of telling the Professor that he'd rather had had something sarcastic on his tombstone, along the lines of what Blackadder had wanted to carve on his ('Here lies Edmund Blackadder, and he's bloody annoyed...'), but ignored it, instead sitting on one of the pavestones leading down to the secluded spot, and looking at the grave almost fondly.

On the other side of a set of bushes, directly behind the area, there was part of the grounds that she'd loved, as a teenager. She'd liked the wildflowers in the grass, their pastel colours, and the fact that they still grew every year, seemingly no matter what. He'd just told her they'd die eventually.

Thinking about it, suddenly, everything seemed to distort, completely blurring out before coming back into focus.. In front of him, there was no grave: he wasn't even sitting on a paving stone. It was, instead, a sunny morning in what seemed to be late summer, and he could hear someone from the other side of the bush.

And there was him, sitting there in his pyjamas. God, it was almost funny. Think of all the Hitchhikers puns he could apply to this moment.

Getting to his feet warily, he looked around, before moving forward and into the shrub that was ahead of him. It seemed to be exactly the same as before: sans some of the newer features. And it was Jean's voice, calling; calling him.

"Oh, come on, Scott! Don't be such a pessimist." This enthusiastic yet rebuking comment was directed at a seemingly pissed off teenager clad in black, sitting on one of the benches underneath the trees. The only thing he had which wasn't lacking in colour was white (which didn't technically count, but never mind that) and consisted of a thick set of bandages covering his eyes.

"I'm not a pessimist; just a cynic and an opportunist, all in one. I don't see why you felt like dragging me out here anyway: it's not like I can see anything, is it?"

"God, you can never see the bright side of things, can you? Come on; it's a glorious day, and you're sitting there being a prickly cactus."

"I don't react well to sunlight, do I? Please say you'll drag me back inside now." This was said almost pleadingly: and Scott knew why. He remembered hating going outside the boundaries that inside the mansion presented, simply because he could remember them; and the outside environment was an ever changing variable. The lack of control this presented him, being a control freak and knowing it, was frankly scaring.

However, as he spent another five minutes looking in on the continuing argument, which was snowballing towards him getting hit rapidly, it felt as if someone had grabbed the back of his neck and yanking him back, landing him with a (literal) bump back where he'd started, with someone apparently giving him CPR. Wait. He'd stopped breathing?

The brush of a sideburn against his cheek suddenly alerted him to who was actually doing said resuscitation, and he sat up with a gasp, knocking Logan away from him.

"What the hell was that for?" he asked, taking a deep breath and trying to steady himself. Logan's breath managed to taste of mint and cigars at the same time, and although that wasn't a good mix at the best of times, the taste of nicotine gave him a bit of a kick: always had done.

"You weren't breathing, for fuck's sake; it's five in the morning and someone had to resuscitate you. God, you conking out is all we need right now. This place was fucking havoc without you last time: Marie and her lot don't need that, ya hear?" The fact that Logan had him by the front of the shirt with the classic 'don't mess with me' look made him nod dumbly -- well, who wouldn't? Despite many of the older girls terming him as 'someone who just needs to be loved,' Logan could be a very scary person. It was the sideburns that did it.

What he wasn't expecting was to be hauled up, and be attemptedly dragged back up the grounds. Not particularly wanting to go anywhere (he preferred the solice of his surroundings now), he dug his heels into the ground. Logan turned, looked unimpressed, then did the unexpected: forcibly lifted him over his shoulder and carried him up to the mansion, as he hung helplessly.

"Logan, get off me; I can walk." He struggled, but to no avail: Wolverine's grip wasn't yielding, apparently.

"Yeah, but you'll just end up with your bike, or the jet. You need sleep, kid: you've been up for four hours already, and that can't be good." Scott tried struggling again, somewhat fruitlessly, as Logan kicked the door closed behind him and crossed the hallway. Scott, who was woefully upside down, was secretly glad that he didn't get motion sickness as the pair went up the stairs. He'd resigned himself to the fact that he was going to be staying over Logan's shoulder until they were on the third floor, and so had stopped trying to wriggle out of his grip, despite every reflex in his body screaming at him to get out of this situation now.

"I'm not a kid any more, thank you very much." Yes, Logan could address any of the students as 'kid', but no way was he getting into the habit of using it as a term for him too.

"Who's the youngest adult here?" Logan asked, almost amused, as they reached the appropriate storey.

"Technically, Warren, but he said he was going to get home at one point or another, due to family commitments. Don't even go there, Logan: I was having a good morning."

"Yeah, well, if passing out next to a grave is a good morning, I hate to think what a bad one is, bub." Reaching to open the door, Logan dropped his charge inside his bedroom before pulling what he suspected was the door key from a hook on the frame, and closing the door behind him sharpish. From inside the room, Scott heard the lock click and walked calmly back to where he'd just come from.

"You do have to be joking. Unlock the door."

"Night night, Scottie. See you in the morning." At which point Logan travelled back down the corridor, and Scott was left wondering how on earth he'd managed to fall for that. Instead of sleeping, he headed straight over to his desk and started marking; after all, he had better things to do than follow Logan's instructions (especially with caffeine pulsing around his veins.)

In fact, when Logan came back to unlock the door later, he found it hanging open, with a hair grip protruding from inside the keyhole.

**0-0-0-0-0**

Despite two days of restless sleep (or lack thereof), Scott was up and raring to go on Saturday morning, even without the aid of coffee. After all, this was an important trip, and he enjoyed flying at any time, day or night.

"Ro, I'm going to head off, I think," he said, passing her in the corridor on the way downstairs. "See you tomorrow."

"Oh, no. You think I'm not coming with you?" She turned to go with him, accompanying him about two metres down the corridor, until he stopped and turned on his heel.

"Wait... we need to put someone in charge of the place, in that case: Jubes'll turn the place upside down if we're not careful."

The pair called back down the hall in unison to the only adult left -- or, the only one they thought really constituted as an adult, having a permanent spot on the X-Team and being able to buy alcohol. "Logan!"

His door flung open and said side burned mutant leaned around the doorframe, shirtless. "What?" It took a lot of will power to stop Scott rolling his eyes.

"Look after the kids. We're going out," he said. Logan's jaw dropped, and he emerged into the hallway, thankfully with a pair of trousers on.

"Oh, no. Not when they're all awake and able to cause havoc."

"You can handle it; after all, you're The Great Wolverine, able to handle any tantalizing problem that life throws at you, right? See you later," he replied. Logan stood, flabbergasted, as the pair hotfooted it down the corridor and into the lift.

Leaning against the back of the elevator, Scott picked a piece of stray hair off the front of his shirt and discarded it in disdain. Admittedly, he hadn't reverted right back to 'beatnik mode', as Jean used to put it, but was instead compromising between smart and casual: shirt and jeans, plus hiking boots. He found it oddly comfortable, somehow, to land right in the middle. Like being a college student again.

Minutes later, as they strapped themselves into the pilot and co-pilot's seat, respectively, of the Blackbird, she turned to him with a question.

"Ready to go?" It was obviously a concerned tone; seeing as the last time Scott had been flying, it was Alkali Lake... and, well, they knew what had happened.

"Come on; this is the professor we're talking about. I'm fine: don't join the long string of people who keep looking at me as if I'm about to drop dead any second. Let's get this show on the road." As the basketball court retracted, and the X-Jet took off vertically into the morning sky, various students watched them go, the younger of the group with their noses pressed to the windows as they followed the black shape as far as they could see it. Subconsciously, there was a sigh of relief.

Everything was going to be fine: Xavier was coming home.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hope Springs Eternal**

A/N: I apologise for the lateness of this chapter: copious research had to be done, and various other bits and bobs got in the way, but the wait was hopefully worth it. Enjoy!

**0-0-0-0-0**

"This morning, in Egypt, a new mustaba tomb was finally uncovered after two months of careful excavating. The tomb itself belongs to a mysterious figure who we know as En Saban Nur, who was possibly a priest, but very obviously an important figure in what we know as the Fifth Dynasty, judging by his burial site in Abusir: one of now fifteen tombs found in the desert near Memphis. Our correspondent Sally Lockhart is at the site now, with Professor Ahmet Abdol, who was leading the dig at the time of discovery, and was first into the tomb itself. Sally: what's new?"

The perky blonde's overly cheerful face was replaced by a brunette's, who was standing in the middle of the desert looking entirely out of place in her suit and heavy makeup. As the interview was conducted, the various students who were gathered around the TV sighed, and waited to see if there was anything mutation related in the media, which was really the only reason they watched.

The news had always been a stalwart piece of mansion life. Living in the current political crisis and being part of the minority, Professor Xavier had always thought it was best to watch the media for hints of what was happening in the Senate that concerned them. If there was nothing mutation related on, well, everyone was up to date on current affairs, which was more than you could ask from the general teenage population. Hence, at 6 PM, everything else went off, CNN went on, and anyone who had the time would gather around the box to see what was going to faze them next.

"Interesting wall decorations for a mustaba tomb, don't you think?" Xavier said thoughtfully, directing the comment towards the teacher next to him. Scott simply glanced up from the laptop he had balanced on his knees, took in the digital pictures that were being displayed on the screen, and then returned to the piece of electronics he had on his lap to shut it down, and sit back properly, running a hand through his hair as he went. It seemed odd, to have the Professor sitting directly next to him rather than in his wheelchair.

After years of paraplegia, Charles thought himself very much lucky for the opportunity to walk again. Although having to pay weekly visits to a physiotherapist, and at the moment only able to walk for short stretches on crutches, the upsides were endless. Greater scope to help students, not having to ask someone to get a book off the top shelf of the library, later being able to walk through the whole of the grounds rather than total restriction… all in all, no matter how much time it was going to take him to regain full use of his legs, it would be worth it.

"Yeah; not that I know what I'm talking about here, but they are different from the usual. Normally it's all bird people and cats, isn't it?" Cyclops' words brought him out of imaginings and back into the real world, only to hear a very botched account of Egyptian tomb decorations.

"In Egyptology for Dummies, yes, Scott, but I believe you'll find that's Horus, one of their gods, and they did use to worship cats, after all," came the almost amused rebuke.

"Well, what does that say about them: a 'great' civilization who worshipped ca--" the sentence was cut short suddenly, as a scream echoed from above. Fighting off every urge to swear loudly in front of everyone, as the students littered around the room stopped their chatter and looked up, Scott leapt from his seat and began to make his way upstairs two steps at a time. Logan, who was coming from the other direction (jumping flights of stairs to get from the fourth floor to the first in the fastest time possible), met him at the end of the corridor, panting slightly for breath.

"Holy fuck-- Marie?" The words echoed around the room, as the pair surveyed the scene. Rogue was leaning against the wall, clutching her arms, staring in horror and shock at the devastation in front of her. Bobby was lying face down on the floor, not looking remotely conscious. On top of that, most of the room was covered in an erratic mix of sheet ice, sleet, puddles of slush and huge blocks of ice akin to glaciers that had been furniture beforehand.

"I… I didn't mean to… I only kissed him…" As Logan set about generally reassuring (but being a bit precautious at the same time) over the teenager who was still standing, Scott was on the floor, trying to remember anything he knew about emergency first aid. Come on, his fiancée had been a doctor, he could do this. It'd be pretty pathetic if he couldn't: what would that look like?

Relying on his knowledge of the night with a previous incident of this ilk (that being with Logan), he carefully turned the student over, checked his pulse (it was racing: what on Earth had happened?), and shifted him into the recovery position, making sure that his breathing wasn't obscured. Bobby was completely limp (a good comparison would be a rag doll). Standing and turning on his heel, Logan mouthed the word 'gloves' round the side of Rogue's head, whose whole frame was shaking slightly as she clung onto him. Scott merely nodded, and sprinted upstairs. Please say that Marie had kept her gloves: but what about the cure? What the hell had happened there? Everything had become so much more complex recently.

Finally making it to her bedroom, all thoughts of meticulous and unobtrusive searching went out of the window. Pulling open drawer after drawer, he riffled through each one, only to come up with nothing. Sighing explosively, he opened the top layer of the chest (which he had intentionally passed over), pulled it open, and grimaced as he had to dive near head first into a teenage girl's underwear drawer.

Right at the bottom, predictably enough, through layers of petticoats, bras and a few pieces of lacy underwear that he'd chucked back in the drawer in abject horror, was a singular pair of gloves: white and blue, embroidered with buttons and, if he remembered rightly, the ones she'd worn whilst they were at Alkali… dammit, Summers, stop thinking about it.

Pushing his way through a small group of younger students who had congregated around the end of the hallway, obviously curious to see what was happening, he considered briefly sliding down the banister to get there quicker, but acquiesced with sprinting downstairs, having to wait for Storm to get the larger group of teenagers out of the hallway, and then charging back along the corridor to the indoor igloo, as such.

Closing the door softly behind him, he found the professor having laid Bobby out on his bed, making sure he was comfortable, and Logan and Marie sitting in the window-seat. Logan's arms were wrapped protectively around a carefully covered waist, and she was leaning into him, holding her sleeves over her hands and gripping them so tightly the stretched material had obvious creases in it, and her knuckles were white. As Scott passed the pair of gloves over, Rogue's confusion-filled face suddenly took on a look of horror, and she stared at the offered articles in a mix of pure disgust and fear, grabbed them, and scurried out of the room: you could hear her running upstairs.

"Damn it," Scott cautiously made sure his glasses were straight (he'd felt them shifting, which was why he wore his visor during physical activity: glasses, although more comfortable, had a tendency to bounce about, whereas his visor would generally stay where it was) before piping up loudly enough to be heard. "Professor: do you have any theories? The one that's running through my head at the minute seems implausible at best."

"Well, I believe that the cure is not so much a cure, but more a 'brief' respite, as such, where your X-Factor is blocked, just as Leech's mutation works," Xavier said thoughtfully. "This will, no doubt, have a major impact on the mutant community: I must contact Henry. We will be needing a doctor anyway, if Robert is to wake up any time soon. Logan, please, go and see Rogue; Scott and I have some business downstairs." Logan simply raised and eyebrow, and bolted for the exit. Meanwhile, Xavier picked up his crutches from their spot against the wall, and Scott let him precede him out of the door, into the lift, where an uncomfortable and somewhat troubled silence reigned supreme as both tried to work out what had happened.

"I do believe we have some phone calls to make. Do you have any idea where Beast is?" Scott had to think about the question before answering: he actually had no idea what Hank would be doing, except for his usual political campaign.

So, instead of answering, he shrugged, and passed over his communicator- a metallic handheld piece of equipment with the near standard X embossed on it, like most, if not all, of their X-Men related gear. After all, everyone who had been in the X-Men previously and kept bonds with the school had one, so, theoretically, Hank would too- but whether he kept it on his person in case of emergency was another matter entirely. Xavier dithered over it, before placing it on his desk quietly, and turning to him with a strange look on his face.

"Logan told me about the incident after I talked to you, that morning on the phone."

"Oh." That seemed the only way to cover it, really-- there was nothing else he wanted to say at that particular moment on that subject. He'd been planning to have an intentional 'accident' that evening to test some things out, but that wasn't going to happen any time soon now: he had bigger fish to fry. Inevitably, students came before he did. "Uhh… Bobby needs attention more than I do, as does Rogue, so… can we come back to that later?"

At least Xavier wasn't looking at him as if he was an interesting lab specimen who was going to drop dead any moment. Storm had even tried testing his memory earlier that week by drilling him on famous battles in World War Two, trying to test whether he was completely okay, which had irked him. So, he'd gone along with it anyway (if not in a tone of voice which told his interrogator 'I know what you're doing, but I'll play along anyway because I feel like entertaining you'), but it still felt slightly insulting.

Picking up the phone and dialling Hank's cell phone number- he'd always remembered it because it was so similar to Jean's, Scott passed the handset to Xavier and began to wring his hands, waiting for the call to connect somewhat nervously. The fact that this was the second time in three months or so Hank had been called from his duties elsewhere to act as resident doctor would mean he was seriously going to have to find a way to pay him back: maybe do a job on his car…

**0-0-0-0-0**

The implications of that evening's events, of course, weren't good. Not at all. Over the next few days, there were stories of tragic accidents as mutants with seemingly devastating powers re-manifested (if not fully retaining their former level of potency), much to their owners' horror. There were those, however, who were jubilant at discovering that they were regaining the use of their mutation, warts and all-- especially those who'd been shot with cure bullets.

Although, it had been a shock to wake up with yellow eyes again.

Mystique (or Raven, as she'd had to resort to over the last three months or so), had got out of bed, looked in the mirror, and had had to grip the table for support. The tips of her fingertips had turned blue, too, which she observed with delight. She could watch the colour creeping over her body, exotic pigment reaching every far flung corner of her skin as she pulled off her pyjamas to watch it spread, a tidal wave over pale, artificial beaches.

The only things that weren't there, completing her, were the scales. Which meant clothes.

Sighing, she stalked across the room to the shower. Clothes were so limiting: why did homo sapiens even bother with them? Something small and unobtrusive was needed: especially for the only thing she had particularly on her mind at that point.

She was going to find Magneto, and snap his neck for leaving her. Snap his neck and take full pleasure in hearing the crack as the bone split, and his lifeless form to fall to the floor. If only doing so meant the victim's head would come off, but alas, it didn't work like that. It would have been far more satisfying.

To think she ever loved him. To think she let him enrapture her in his 'dream', only to drop her on the pavement like some animal when she could do nothing for him.

Beginning to search through her apartment for something to wear, she stopped herself. Who needed proper clothes when she could, evidently, morph them on? Standing up straight, she thought about it briefly and watched the black, tight fitting clothing blossom over as little of her skin as possible, smiling at the irony and the fact that, after three months of being helpless and useless, all her talents had returned.

Black leather clothing, like the X-Men. Lilith, going out of her way to kill Lucifer. Erik would appreciate it, in a twisted way. Erik and his principles: playing God, and not bothering to see the consequences. Until it was too late, of course.

_Watch the revelation, Erik. Watch it and weep._

However, the revelation for Erik, rather than being an apocalyptic ending of fire, blood and anguish (unlike San Francisco's catastrophic conclusion), was more one of satisfaction.

Ever since he'd still been able to wiggle that chess piece, he'd been waiting. Waiting to regain all control of metal: become the master of magnetism once more, and then continue on his way. Of course, it'd be easier without the X-Men in his way: without Charles (let alone Cyclops, who was just as pivotal to the X-Men), Storm wouldn't last long. And, as for Wolverine? He'd only wander off again, to try and find any semblance of a past he had.

Of course, it was all (literal) water under the bridge now. Or over the dam, but that was a mere technicality. The fact that he'd known probably the last person who could tell Logan anything about his life before the operation, and he had died months ago: mercy of Cyclops' optic blasts, was something that no one would get over now. After all, not everyone could bring themselves back up from the bottom of a large body of water, much less with a large hole in their torso from where'd they'd been blasted and the fall from the top of the Statue of Liberty.

As it went, though, he wasn't planning to do anything. Yet. He'd give the world some time to stew before he made a move.

After all, in chess, the pawns went first.

**0-0-0-0-0**

Warren had had to watch as his father's company's stocks dropped dramatically, and was doing everything he could to make them rise again. It would take time: lawsuits were being taken up against the company for not doing enough testing before releasing the product- it was like the thalidomide disaster all over again. What had they done wrong?

He was glad that he'd taken the decision to fly away. Sprouting wings the first time had hurt like nothing else he could imagine: having to do it again would probably be debilitating: not that he was sure what would have happened to them in the first place; how can you cure a limb? He felt especially sorry for those with dangerous mutations who'd been 'cured'- especially returning to the mansion to find Rogue covered in thick clothing, sitting on her own in one of the window seats, staring at the rain outside. He hadn't stayed long, just to see Ororo, but he could sense the change. Almost subconscious, it lurked in the air, spreading itself to every far corner. Unease.

However, he couldn't work out why. Talking to their Professor-- southern British accent, calm demeanour and concerned looks ever so often shot in people's direction (mostly one of the teachers he'd never met before: went by the name of Cyclops or Mr Summers, depending, and wore glasses that meant you couldn't see his eyes, no matter how hard you tried), it seemed that the whole fiasco had taken a toll on everyone. Plus, it was indirectly his fault for not having as big a part in his father's company than he should have, which meant he couldn't accept the invitation to stay permanently.

Taking one look back at the mansion, he started to get into his car and drive away, when he noticed there was someone sprinting down the driveway to get towards him.

"Angel!" One foot inside the car, the other out, he turned, and waited for the figure to reach him- Scott had run down about two hundred metres of driveway full pelt and was panting slightly as he reached the winged man at the other end of the driveway.

"I want you to take this," he told him, passing a sleek silver object over. "If, as it inevitably will, life screws up in San Francisco, drop us a line. You're welcome back any time: you'll find that I'll always have my communicator on, as will Ro. There's also a uniform waiting for you, if you're considering."

Warren stood for a minute, and examined the piece of equipment curiously. "I'll give it some thought," he told the older man, and got into the car properly.

Scott tipped his lip slightly, which Warren took as a smile. "Great. Have a good trip." He patted the top of the convertible and it pulled away, and, watching the Lamborghini go, Scott pondered what he could have done to it, performance wise, before turning on his heel and traipsing back to the mansion, hands in pockets, deep in thought.

**0-0-0-0-0**

Everything was set up. There was an armchair there, positioned and ready for his body to collapse into, he was in a room that had been covered in dust sheets when he was a student, and he had placed a note on the arm of the chair explaining just what was happening if he misjudged time and someone found him in there, looking apparently dead. Hopefully, no one would take it as a suicide note, but the words when they opened it were less than full of angst, regret, and blame.

Instead, on a piece of squared paper, he'd scribbled:

_Don't panic- I'm not dead yet._

_Having an experiment- will be in 1996 if you need me. Just don't try and move me- took me ages to get back before(no thanks to Logan), and I can't be bothered to go through that again. No need for CPR, freak outs, doctors or anything of that ilk: I'm completely fine, and will be back at some point in the near future._

_Yours,_

_S.S._

Hopefully, everyone would get the picture. Thinking about a certain date in 1996, he took a deep breath, stepped back, and felt himself almost falling backwards.

Time walking felt glorious, in all truth. Although everything was slightly blurred around the edges, he could see clearly… but also, he felt more tangible, somehow. Both times before, he'd been more of… well, he didn't know how to put it: saying ghostly was absurd. It was like astral travelling. And yet, he wasn't moving from the spot he'd stepped to: just time travelling- not dimension hopping.

Somehow, he was glad. This didn't have to become more complex.

Stopping himself from going any further backwards, and walking to the window behind him, he peered out, hoping that he'd be seeing the right thing, and that this would work. Looking from outside, yes, he could see the pair in the grounds, but, from this viewpoint, a distorted figure in the bushes, looking at them from there, too.

The benefits of this power were extensive, he suddenly realised. But then, changing a point in history: say, the plane crash that had killed his family, could have huge effects on everyone else. It couldn't be done-- it was meant to be that way. He needed to get out of this, now. Go forward in time, to where he existed, at this age, and stay there. Before he harmed anyone else.

Trying to think forward, concentrating on the time he'd left his own piece of the slipstream, he stepped forward, and felt ten years or so of history whoosh past him in seconds. It was incredible, but also frightening. The implications alone were enough to think about. All that time he'd spent wandering: what had he changed? Accidentally, albeit, but still, it would be different. At least, before, when travelling with consciousness alone, he hadn't had his mutation (okay, primary mutation) to worry about.

However, he must have got back about ten or fifteen minutes late, as there were three people standing in front of where he turned up not looking too amused. That being Xavier, Logan and Storm.

"Where the fuck did you go?" Logan demanded, before anyone else could get a look in. "Christ, we don't you flipping out on us too- it's bad enough with everything else going haywire."

"Distance wise, I went less than a metre towards the window," he replied, edging around the subject.

"Time wise?" Xavier prompted quietly. He was holding the note that Scott had left carefully between two of his fingers, using the others to grip onto his crutches.

"Ten years or so. I didn't attempt contact, or anything. Didn't really do much, to tell the truth-- just watched. No sin in that, is there? Christ." Suddenly feeling drained, he placed one hand on the back on the armchair in front of him for support, trying to hide the sudden fatigue. No luck though, as everyone noticed.

"Kid, go to bed. You're wiped out." What Logan wasn't expecting, however, was the derogatory reply. It was the straw that broke that camel's back, in Scott's opinion.

"Logan, do me a favour and _fuck off_. I'm sick of everyone staring at me as if I'm going to drop dead, or collapse, or do whatever the hell else you're expecting me to suddenly do right in front of them. Christ, I'm not a kid any more, and I'm not being ordered about and severely patronised by some Canadian degenerate with a complex about my age." And, with a sudden influx of energy, he stalked out of the room, footsteps resounding down the corridor.

"Well, someone's pissed…" Logan muttered under his breath. Xavier simply turned to Storm with a pained look.

"How long do you think he's been bottling that up?" Ororo asked quietly, concern showing through her voice.

"Knowing Scott, long enough, if not too long." Xavier looked down sadly, hearing a slam from beneath: no doubt, that was Scott's bedroom door shaking in its hinges. "I'll talk to him later. Logan, for the meantime, please stop addressing Cyclops as 'kid'. He does have a name, plus a codename, which is at least two choices for you to start with."

"I thought the k… Cyclops," Logan corrected himself, "was incapable of being in a bad mood. Jesus." Storm nearly burst out laughing, and Xavier permitted himself a smile. "What?"

"You didn't know Scott when he was prickly and teenage," she told him, trying to keep the urge to laugh from taking over her system completely.

"Moody? Him? Christ. Never would have thought it," Logan said, staring through the door the man they were discussing had just departed through, and trying to imagine it. In some ways, it made odd sense.

"Scott was, indeed, not the most level headed of teenagers, but I would rather not discuss it without his knowledge and full approval," Xavier stated, bringing the conversation to an abrupt halt. "I do believe the news is starting-- shall we?" He let the others leave the room before him, and all three stood in an uncomfortable silence in the lift downstairs until they had reached their destination, at which point they were swamped by teenagers anyway, and all thought drifted off previous events and onto the updates on the Cure they were being given. A carefully covered Rogue sat on Logan's lap, joining the teachers on the couch, as the main news titles began, and the anchor woman took over.

No one realised that, outside, it had begun to rain heavily.


	4. Chapter 4

**Hope Springs Eternal**

As the last news reporter's land rover headed over the ridge, Abdol sighed, muttered something in his own tongue, and began to trudge back to the tent he'd been working in.

It was hot in Abusir, but then, the Memphis climate had never been cool. Hot desert sun was shining through the door of the tent, and the professor took another swig of water before returning to his task. After all, there was a large amount of tasks to be done, and he was the one who had to organise it. Archaeologists, he'd found, were meticulous investigators, but the ones he was working with happened to be completely unorganised.

There were several features that made this tomb intriguing. Firstly, it was the sheer amount of decoration, that no other tomb he'd seen had in any such scale, and with the same magnitude of colour; it reminded him more of a New Kingdom burial. As well as all the hieroglyphs, there were more carvings in the chapel than normal- as well as the carving of the tomb's owner, there were eleven others- male and female, all different shapes and sizes. There even seemed to be a child, but those details weren't bothering him quite yet. He was more worried about breaking the glyph, and finding out more about this En Saban Nur, who seemed to be a priest of some kind.

Of course, all the oddities had attracted the world news, which honestly didn't help. When having to talk to various different reporters every day, it seriously stopped progress, because they normally wanted to talk to anyone they could. They'd be all over the camp like locusts, infesting every tent to find out what was happening, and all sorts of questions they simply couldn't answer yet. Still, tomorrow, they would be going down the shaft into the tomb itself, to see what they could find. They thought they'd found the sarcophagus in the tomb's chapel, as another anomaly, but this idea had quickly been quashed. That was before he'd had chance to take a good look, not all the students he had with him, going for PhDs and whatever else, and on the dig. They were all from America- their two geologists, several of the archaeologists and his language expert, who already had enough letters after his name, and had only arrived in the early hours of that morning, to be sent straight to work. Doug Ramsey was only twenty four, and already had a huge string of letters after his name. That, surely, wasn't natural; he had to be a mutant, even if he didn't realise it.

In fact, there were four mutants on the dig that he knew of, or supposed he knew of. One, he was certain about- himself. Sadly, at the minute, despite the amount of solar radiation, he couldn't power himself up and become what Nature intended him to be. To Abdol, this was nothing short of a pain- no energy blasts, no sizing up from the small man he was into something bigger and much better… he despised it.

And, he knew that there was only one reason for this. Someone else was stealing all the energy, and he had a good idea who- one of their geologists. Alex Blanding and his associate, Ms Dane (no one was at any doubt what was going on between them, seeing as they shared a tent) were here studying, and he had a sneaking suspicion that both of them were harbouring mutations. He couldn't do anything with his own powers when he was near their workspace, for a start, and the latter's roots were growing through- but, compared to her brown hair, the roots were actually green.

Abdol decided at that point that it would be better to mull over other, more important matters than a trivial problem that would be sorted over the next few weeks, when someone poked his head around the flap of his tent- Ramsey, laden with pieces of paper (and a pencil stuck unceremoniously behind one ear). "Have you found anything?" After all, there would be no other reason for the unexpected visitation.

"Plenty. Enough to say that this seems odd, like everything else here. Some of it's written in the past, as you said it probably would be, but most of it's written in future tense- everything _will _happen."

"What?"

The younger of the pair tucked a stray strand of hair behind his ear, discovering the pencil tucked behind it and shoving it into the trousers of his shorts almost apologetically, before repeating the sentence in Arabic.

"Fair enough," the professor replied (in his mother tongue), and indicated a fold up table to put his armfuls of handouts down on. "What else is there?"

Ramsey passed him a notepad (written in English), and he began to read somewhat clumsily. It was, indeed, odd- it gave mention to a red fire bird, a man with eyes 'like suns', and even a pair of people (a man and a woman) who could make metal- not just craft it. "What is this?" Over on the table, Doug was arranging various Polaroid photos, pieces of paper with writing on, and annotated pictures of various carvings into some semblance of order.

"It makes more sense put in context," he assured, "look at the pictures, and it all adds up. There's your red fire bird- look," he pointed at one of the faded, painted wall carvings- yellow skin, but red hair (not at all similar to the usual), "and this guy here must be the metal maker, with the green haired one standing next to him the woman who can." He proceeded to match names to pictures, and explain more, to Abdol's surprise.

"And, how long have you been working on this, Dr Ramsey?" He asked, placing a finger on one of the photos.

"Uhh… about three hours, all told, I think."

"Astounding," the professor said, more to himself than anyone else. "Can I keep some of these pictures?"

"Be my guest. If you'll excuse me…" Doug waited until he was waved away, and headed back to his own tent, to compose an e-mail. He'd told Kitty that as soon as he got any information, he'd tell her- she'd been very much interested, as well as everyone in her school.

Doug had met Kitty Pryde at a convention, and they'd remained firm friends when they discovered they lived on the same side of the city, despite the age gap between them. They maintained interests in the same thing- maths, video games and the like, and although she'd gone to a private school, they kept in contact to discuss video games, and occasionally harass each other for not being on the same website at the same time. She'd be going off to college soon enough, and it was quite possible that she'd be sitting in his calculus seminars one day, so it was best to keep in contact and see how things went.

_Dear Kitty,_

_You wouldn't believe half of this if I told you…_

**0-0-0-0-0**

Alex and Lorna were peering over a set of samples underneath a lantern swinging precariously from the roof, to try and add some more light to the situation. They knew where the rock came from now, and its age, they just needed to sort it into some semblance of order, and find the eldest rock on the site. Then, they could get down to the nitty gritty, but they needed everything they could get first.

"And, we haven't even been able to get into the actual tomb yet," Alex said, somewhat dejectedly.

"Who says it's going to be oldest down there, though?"

"I dunno; I've just got the feeling it could be."

"Alex," Lorna sighed, pushing a rock slightly further to one side, "I'm not in the mood for male stupidity this evening."

"Well, we've got the sarcophagus and whatever else is down there to find yet- come on," he replied, attempting to reason, "who says it won't be?"

They'd been reliably informed that they wouldn't be able to go down into the burial chamber until at least the next day, if not later. The chute was so deep they needed climbing equipment and someone qualified to make sure everything was safe before they attempted, and no one was entirely sure when they'd be getting to the site. No one was going to get hurt on this dig, as they'd been told by one of the archaeologists, who were just as eager to get down there and start excavating.

"Not in the mood for male stupidity," she repeated, running a hand self consciously through her hair. She was painfully aware that strands of green were poking through the brown, and she couldn't do anything to remedy that at that precise point, which irked her.

"Come on, it's late," Alex said, practical as ever. He turned the torch above them off, took another from his pocket, and switched it on, casting a faint beam outside the tent. "We should be in bed if we want to be up tomorrow to nag the professor again."

He was halfway outside the tent flap when there was a clang, and a swear word rang clear directly after it.

"Stupid lantern," Lorna muttered. "That's the fourth time this week."

**0-0-0-0-0**

Abdol, however, had decided to keep burning the midnight oil, and was searching through the various pieces of paper his lingual expert had left him. Various scribbles on lined paper ripped from a pad, with photos of carvings clipped to them were hardly his idea of bedtime reading- but then, he hadn't done much at all after his wife had died. Instead, he'd taken the position as head of Egyptology, led digs, found various things, and kept going. However, he felt almost drawn to Abusir, and he wasn't quite sure why.

It was if someone was calling him, but not really- it tingled, maybe, at the back of his mind, but that was all. It hardly bothered him, but it was still there. He supposed it was the slight sense of excitement he was getting from leading possibly one of the most important archaeological digs of this century, and cementing his place in history along with some of the most prominent archaeologists ever born. The power, the position… he could almost taste it.

He picked up the last (substantially larger) set of papers, checked the time, and then unclipped them, spreading them across the desk for closer scrutiny. They were the larger pictures of the people the… writing involved.

Twelve inside the tomb, one figure guarding the outside- presumably the En Saban Nur to whom the burial chamber belonged- well, they assumed. It would be even more atypical if not, and by that point people would be saying this was a hoax (despite the geologists telling him otherwise- who else would date the mortar of the bricks?) and his funding would be pulled. It had happened before, and it could happen again, and the professor wasn't going to be taken away from another dig.

Meanwhile, the Polaroids that had been taken had been stuck to the paper, and annotated by Doug in small, plain script. Abdol studied these with interest. The pictures were so individual- a blue man, a red man like fire, one with an odd tattoo over his eye, in a M shape (but they didn't have the roman lettering system then- how could they have known that?), and the four that they'd outlined previously- some had been annotated with 'San Francisco' 'cure' 'fight' and even 'black leather', which was disturbing enough in itself, really. However, the last one in the pile made him drop his pen.

He knew exactly who the person was in that carving. That was the Living Pharoah- his doppelganger, what nature intended him to be. What was this madness?

Despite the hour, he got up abruptly, and decided to go and see the chapel again for himself. Wrapping himself in warm fleece and a scarf (it was cold outside- this was the desert, after all), he took his torch and stepped outside, making his way across the sea of tents and into the tomb's chapel. He'd been in there briefly, but hadn't scrutinised the carvings that deeply- he'd been waiting until they had an overview of the writing inside- but, now they did, he'd been waiting until the next morning. However, this had somehow managed to get personal, so it was a matter of necessity to do it now, and not later.

As he put a hand on the wall, tracing a finger around the shape, there was a voice behind him; a deep baritone.

_Good evening,_ it said, in Middle Egyptian, but not how he'd expected the words to sound. _I've been waiting for you._

**0-0-0-0-0**

_A/N: _Well, another chapter- thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed. The sheer amount of research I've done for this meant it took time (if anyone can see I've screwed up, feel free to contact me and show me where), and it's also exam season, so bear with me here. Next update should be as soon as possible, which should be quite soon, with any luck.


	5. Chapter 5

**Hope Springs Eternal**

It had just been one of those days as far as Scott was concerned. Or, it was now one of those evenings, as he made his way quietly downstairs in his pyjamas. He'd woken up in the middle of the night, halfway through an especially vivid nightmare in which everyone he knew and loved died in a plane, underneath the plane and saving him, or drowning inside the plane while he could do nothing to help because he was someone outside the plane somehow watching.

Why aircraft, for crying out loud? Could the world stop taunting him by killing loved ones in conjunction with engine problems? Scott rolled his eyes behind his sleeping goggles, and winced involuntarily as the lift doors pinged shut too loudly. In all truth, he knew that he shouldn't be doing this (so far, he'd been caught every time by the Professor, Jean or anyone awake at the time), but logic dictated that if he didn't alleviate the pressure that was giving him a horrible headache, it would grow larger and leave him in bed wishing he'd never been born. In fact, the only reason he was in this mess in the first place was because he'd been concentrating on other, more confusing things, and not on his primary problem.

Taking his things off the mannequin in the men's dressing room and dropping them on one of the benches, Scott started to get changed, and concentrate on another, slightly niggling problem. Xavier would, no doubt, expect him to apologise to Logan for previous offences, and while he was fully willing to cower at the professor's feet for forgiveness, he was in no way prepared to do the same for Wolverine.

Scott despised apologising, simply because he wasn't at all good at it. Living with telepaths was fair enough, because they knew he was trying hard to get the words out and actually meant every word of it, but to someone who, at first meeting, had grabbed him by the front of the cardigan and shaken him for no apparent reason but the fact that he was there (needless to mention the whole hitting on the fiancée business), was unlikely to understand.

Making sure his visor was firmly in place, he did up his uniform jacket, and punched his code into the Danger Room door, granting him access. Once inside, he said loudly "Initiate simulation Tango-zero-one-Charlie," enunciating every syllable clearly, and watched as the room rippled into position for him.

It was hardly a major change: a large white ring had blossomed on the floor, and a set of machines with clay pigeons discs in had ringed the walls on one side of the room. Standing in the circle, Scott simply said one word, and multicoloured discs began to fly at him from all directions.

It wasn't a real session; more of a game- the idea being that he tried not to get hit, blasted as many of the targets as he could, and didn't step out of the circle. Easier said than done, really, as he was forced to duck rather rapidly to avoid being whacked around the head by a red disk.

An hour later, he was lying on his back on the floor, bored, watching targets fly over him and hitting them if he could be bothered to get showered in pieces of plastic. Deciding it was high time that he went back to bed; Scott ordered the simulation off, got to his feet, and headed to the exit, yawning slightly.

He'd only just stepped outside the door and was about to step back into the changing rooms when someone slightly further down the corridor cleared their throat quietly.

_Oh, hell,_ he thought to himself, and turned to face Professor Xavier, who was clad dressing gown and slippers and looked about as tousled as a bald man could, considering the time.

"Cyclops, surely you've realised this by now. No matter what hour of the morning you come down here, I know exactly where you are and what you're doing. Telepathy does have its drawbacks, I'm afraid."

If the uniform had enough room for pockets in it, Scott was sure he'd have his hands in them. He acquiesced with staring at his feet instead, unable to meet his mentor's eyes. "Yes, sir," he replied quietly.

"What am I going to do with you?" Xavier said exasperatedly, leaning on one crutch.

"I don't know, sir," he replied, looking up, "and, for yesterday, I'm…" He stopped, only to be cut off by Xavier.

"Oh, don't worry about that," the professor said brusquely, "we all have our off days. Just apologise to Logan and we'll brush it under the rug, but I believe bed is in order."

Scott raised an eyebrow surreptitiously.

"Or, shower, then bed," Xavier said, revising his statement. "I'll see you at breakfast, Scott."

"Goodnight, sir," he said, and turned on one heel, pushing open the door and disappearing inside. As Xavier travelled back to the lift, yawning, he hoped that everything would be alright soon enough. He'd wondered the same when the X-Men had first encountered Logan, though, and it had come to nothing.

**0-0-0-0-0**

When Scott woke up later (at a more social hour of the morning), he'd formulated a plan. Not maybe the most complex of plans, but it was logical and would serve its' purpose well enough. Just because he had to apologise didn't mean he had to do so verbally. Grabbing a marker and a pack of post-it notes, he scribbled the word 'sorry' in capital letters on the top one, leaving it on his desk for a bit to get dressed.

Luckily, Logan was anything but an early riser. He was snoring loudly as Scott infiltrated the room and stuck the first sticky note (the one with writing on) onto the bathroom mirror, before leaving a trail of post-its to the bed, sticking them carefully on the duvet and tossing the last one in the direction of the pillow before making a quick exit, in case their resident grouch woke up mid-operation and decided to lacerate him. You could never be too certain with Logan, and Scott wasn't planning to take risks.

Fifteen minutes later, Logan woke up with something large and bright yellow stuck to his nose. Plucking it off in disgust, he found a whole line of the things across the floor, and even one peeking underneath the door of his en suite.

"Damn kids," he muttered. Still, curiosity killed the Wolverine, and he began to pick them up as he crossed the floor, opened the door, and began to laugh hollowly as he saw where the trail led. Well, if Cyke couldn't be bothered to communicate verbally, then neither could he.

A whole day later, with no communication at all from Logan to indicate he'd even received the note, Scott was operating under the policy of 'I'm not talking to him if he doesn't to me', which was undoubtedly petty, but he didn't really care. Still, he was surprised to find the yellow note stuck on his headboard, with more scrawled almost indecipherably underneath his neat, blocky print.

_Bet Wheels told you to say that. _

Grabbing a pen, he wrote a message beneath in return. _And what if he did?_

He stuck the post-it to Logan's doorframe as he headed back downstairs, and the recipient (who'd been inside the room at the time), pulled it off and wrote a reply. _And you can't even apologise out loud. What is with you, kid?_ Thinking about it, he scribbled out the 'kid' until there was a hole in the paper, leaving a black mark in its place, and headed down a floor, to where he could smell Scott (a mix between mint and expensive aftershave) in his office. He whacked the note against the door reasonably violently, and pelted down the corridor to the stairs.

In fact, this war of words lasted three days and five different post-it notes, with the final (literal) hit coming before the news one Thursday evening. Logan walked behind the couch and took full pleasure in whacking his sparring partner hard in the jaw, leaving the post-it note (attached with parcel tape as it had lost its stickiness) firmly stuck to his cheek.

Scott sighed, and ripped it off in one, turning the piece of paper over to read the message, before looking up to see faces full of concern from a few of the students. Preparing to write a scathing reply, he found the note was actually suggesting they started talking again, but he was distracted by the main headline before he could continue.

"Searches across Memphis, Egypt, are taking place this evening for Professor Abdol, the Egyptologist who was heading the most recent dig in the Abusir area. Meanwhile, two other members of the team, both geologists, were reported missing this morning, and the police are treating all disappearances as suspicious. For the meantime, all excavation on the burial ground has been halted for fears of the safety of the archaeologists and others on the team. Our correspondent, Sally Lockhart, is out in Memphis, trying to see what she can find out. Sally, what's going on?"

Again, the ditzy blonde who tended to annoy Scott every time she emerged had grabbed an archaeologist and was more interrogating them than anything else.

"And what of the rumour that the tomb is actually haunted?"

The poor man laughed before answering. "Ma'am, cursed tombs are simply myth and fallacy, invented by the Egyptians to stop people robbing the resting places of their dead- and, as far as we know, the tomb was in no way booby trapped- mastaba tombs were kept open for things to be taken to the noble inside. I have no comment on the matter."

Sadly, the news reporter was not to be discouraged. "But what about the interesting carvings, the atypical nature of this whole project? Surely that could have something to do with it?"

"Ma'am, there is no three thousand year old spirit in that tomb; simply an incredibly interesting archaeological find in which unfortunate happenings have occurred. It was probably tomb robbers who found the Professor burning the midnight oil, or something. Now, if you'd excuse me, I have to start clean-up. We need to be off the site as soon as possible." He turned and left the reporter hanging, and the live feed was hurriedly cut.

"We'll follow that case as it goes, and have regular updates. Now, closer to home, the President today announced that he 'is interested in integrating himself into the mutant community, and meeting sufferers from the affliction'. This has all begun as the aftermath of the Cure Disaster left mutants who thought they were safe from their genes causing havoc across the streets…"

"Well, that's the biggest pile of bull I've heard in a long time," Rogue muttered under her breath. "Integrating? More gain the voters."

"Marie," Xavier warned, taking a seat next to Scott. "Have some consideration for those not as fortunate as us, please."

"Their consideration put Bobby in a coma, Professor," she replied, settling back from her seat directly in front of the sofa and leaning on the front of the seat. "And like you'd let _him_ in the school."

"If it would increase mutant-human relations, I certainly would, Rogue," Xavier said thoughtfully. "Do remember that the president does know of the X-Men's existence; you were there, after all."

Marie declined to comment, and watched the screen carefully. Bobby had been in the med-bay for a fortnight, with no idea when he'd awaken again. However, everyone was optimistic that, given time, Iceman would be among them once again as his chirpy self.

The programme finished, and the professor glanced at Scott, only to notice a pronounced red spot on the younger man's cheek. "Scott, what on earth happened to your--"

In reply, he lifted the post-it note and waved it slightly. "If you'll excuse me, sir, I think I need to go and find Wolverine." He stood up, navigated through the floor-full of students and headed upstairs, to where he supposed Logan would be.

He found him (surprise, surprise) in his bedroom, but didn't even have to say anything to attract the attention of the man inside, who got up from where he'd been lying on his bed, reading what looked like a porn magazine. He stood, hostile, arm crossed, and simply said "what?"

"That hurt," Scott told him, leaning against the doorframe.

"Good," was his only reply.

"Gee, thanks. You do know that the professor is going to end up locking us both in the Danger Room if we don't try making up now, right?"

Logan looked mildly shocked. "Chuck'd do something like that?"

"I have wonderful memories of him shutting Jean and Emma Frost in there to try and force good relations," Scott informed him.

"Emma Frost?" He asked, curious. The name didn't ring a bell.

"Oh, yeah, you wouldn't know her. British telepath. Comes from old money; her father knew Xavier. Probably your type; didn't wear much and always overdid the blue lipstick, but she was here in my last year of college, I think; didn't get on well with Jean at all."

"Why the hell not?"

"Emma wanted something Jean already had, and Jean wasn't too happy about it." Scott replied, too quickly for Logan's liking. He immediately jumped to a conclusion that seemed logical by the way his informant was edging around the subject, and looked slightly amused, much to Scott's annoyance.

"What?" He asked, crossing his arms.

"What's it with you and women—telepaths, even? Come on, Cyke, all you've got is good cheekbones and a nice ass," Logan observed, not quite stopping himself quick enough.

"I hope that's someone else's judgement and not your own, Logan," Scott replied, leaning his head against the door frame in despair. "Lets just shake hands and make up in the vain hope that Professor Xavier doesn't decide we need the same treatment."

He pushed himself away from the wall, and held out a hand, which Logan stared at for a good five seconds before gingerly taking it and shaking it, without an attempt to crush any fingers.

"Thank you. Now, let's just get on with casual dislike, shall we?" Scott said, turning on one heel to leave.

"Sounds good to me, One Eye," Logan said, and watched him leave before collapsing on his bed again, picking up the magazine.

Sadly, the listener in the next room, stood with a glass against the wall to hear things better, had slipped away about a minute before this without detection. Jubilee now had all the evidence she needed to come to a reasonable conclusion that there was definitely something going on between Mr Summers and Logan, and she was sure that everyone on this earth, or at least every high school student in the vicinity of the mall on Saturday, would want to know.

"Hey—hey, Kitty, wanna hear--" Kitty stopped her mid-flow with a hand, and kept reading the E-mail she'd been sent.

_I've attached a couple of things I thought might be of interest; you know everything that happened at Alcatraz- all the fighting and the group of who seemed to be mercenaries, or at least a coherent team? There are some strange similarities with them and some of the people in the photos in the attachment. The images might look a bit odd, but my camera's not on top form; sand keeps getting into the circuits. _

_I'll be at JFK some time next month, after we finish up here. Can you meet me?_

_Doug_

Kitty took one look at the attachment, and printed it immediately, by which point Jubilee had wandered off, bored.

**0-0-0-0-0**

A/N: Much thanks to Scorpi for the beta read. Meanwhile, I hope everyone enjoys this update: fuelled by too much maths in a day and procrastination from revision (which I'm very good at).


	6. Chapter 6

**Hope Springs Eternal**

Charles had been having a rather surreal morning. For one, Scott had single-handedly pushed the higher class into a mathematical frenzy, effectively incarcerating all of them upstairs, cramming for the test that they'd been set; he could feel their thoughts humming faintly at the back of his mind as he set to marking a group of essays. In fact, he'd been undisturbed for almost half an hour (an unlikely occurrence when his office door was open) when the oh-so familiar sounds of an increasingly petty argument became louder and louder.

"Wipe your feet, for goodness' sake, Logan; the housekeeper is not going to be amused if she has to clean up after you again," Scott's voice snapped irritably from the depths of the entrance hall.

"Oh, so you make me put out my cigar and now I have to wipe my feet too? Christ—who are you, Hitler?" Logan scraped his feet loudly on the doormat, much to the professor's amusement.

"If I'm Hitler, what does that make you? Holy jeez; have you ever heard of trying to earn your keep?"

"Yeah, and I ain't doing it— Charlie's got enough cash to keep me in the black. Get off my jacket, One-Eye." The disgust in Logan's voice was evident.

"One, Professor Xavier is not your personal banker; he lets you into his house willingly and you do nothing but cause trouble-- why he lets you stay here is beyond me. Two, no, I'm not letting go; you're going to help me finish Cerebro."

"I ain't doing nothing, Summers. Let _go_."

As Charles put down his pen and watched, Scott and Logan crossed in front of the doorway, the former looking oddly determined as he dragged the latter by the collar. Though Logan couldn't see his face- he was keeping his arm at full extension, as so to avoid losing a few vital organs- Scott was trying very, very hard not to laugh.

"Morning, Professor," he called, not looking back.

Xavier simply watched them go, chuckling to himself. If he were as moral as he thought he should be, he would have intervened and told Cyclops that he shouldn't be bossing Wolverine around, as it would only end in tears. Nonetheless, he was all too aware that Scott knew that already, and as he was technically a responsible adult he should have already evaluated the risks of dragging Logan, of all the people, down the hallway. Plus, grading essays was an incredibly tedious task, and Scott and Logan bickering was always funny to watch.

**0-0-0-0-0**

Sadly, as everyone in the main dining room at one thirty discovered, the constant petty disagreements hadn't quite ended as Scott walked with haste across the room and to the teacher's table in one corner, shimmying past the large pot plant he could swear had grown a mind of its own, letting the chair scrape painfully across the floor and applying himself to the bowl of soup Ororo had spooned out for him voraciously.

"I may have pushed Wolverine a bit hard," he admitted to the rest of the table. The Professor and Storm exchanged amused looks as Scott peered across the room to make sure Logan wasn't there, and grabbed and buttered a roll as speedily as he could.

"Play with fire and you'll get burnt, Scott," the professor said wisely. "What happened?"

"Well, by the time he'd called me a boy scout, insulted both my parents and insinuated that I'd slept with all my professors to get through college, I couldn't take it any more…" his voice dropped into an undertone, as though highly embarrassed, "I may have said that an animal like him didn't deserve to live in the house and would do much better with a kennel outside, despite the fact he took his codename from a type of weasel."

"You didn't," Ororo said, slightly shocked.

"I did," he replied, going slightly pink. "The look on his face was worth it—anyway, he started it."

"Says the man who takes his own codename from an unintelligent giant," Xavier reprimanded. "Am I going to have to lock you in the Danger Room until you find a way to be civil?"

The tops of Scott's ears began to redden. "No, sir."

"Good. Now, is Cerebro up and running?"

"Between bickering and ordering Logan around, I have two more of the panels to put into place. I'll have to ask Piotr to help after lunch, I think; I'm not strong enough to do it on my own."

"It almost amuses me to think you're putting so much work into fixing the machine, seeing as Erik essentially took a ball bearing and an hour to make it in the first place," Xavier commented idly, breaking off a piece of bread roll and buttering it carefully.

"Well, maybe Magneto could do better, but screw him," Scott said abruptly, and, having finished, left the table in haste, beckoning Colossus to his side as he went.

**0-0-0-0-0**

Unknown to Scott, another person was thinking exactly the same thing about Magneto. Mystique was stood just inside the threshold of a Brotherhood safe house, examining the lock she'd just broken with distaste.

_Well, maybe Erik could do better, but screw him, _she thought irritably. For one reason or another, Magneto's voice had popped into her head, saying reprovingly 'really, Raven, was that entirely necessary?'

As far as she was concerned, yes, it had been necessary to get into the house by any means she could. The safe house she was stood in, nestled in the midst of the New York suburbs, wasn't used often; usually a guest house for mutants Magneto was inviting to join his Brotherhood. Unsurprisingly, this house, like everywhere else she had visited so far, was deserted, but by now, Mystique had got over the idea that she was on a wild goose chase.

Come to think of it, the last time she could remember using this base was a few years back, in a recruitment drive around the state; or, more precisely, around New York City, as Erik had no desire to travel anywhere near Westchester County. However, as neither of them smoked (they both maintained that tobacco was a vile substance), there certainly wouldn't have been a cigarette lighter left on the kitchen counter. Mystique swept the evidence up in triumph, before going to investigate the rest of the rooms.

Really, though, there was no need to investigate what had happened- even walking into the lounge was enough. The walls were badly charred; in parts, there were only gaping holes where the wall should have been. Mystique sighed, and kept looking. Pyro had obviously overdone it, as he always did. He was far too obsequious for his own good.

Less than half an hour later, it was evident that not only had there been a struggle around the ground floor, but there was also no one there. Seating herself on the only cushion left unscarred on the couch, she began to think.

There was, really, only one set of people who would wish to go after Magneto, aside from the government: and if they'd caught him, it would be all over the news. Most likely, it was Xavier and all his leather clad vigilantes, come to clear up after their last fuck-up of a mission. Well, she'd infiltrated the mansion before; she could do it again. Wolverine had most likely left and the others weren't likely to realise it was her, anyway—easy as pie. Plus, lodging and good food on an undercover job were hard to come by, and Xavier's housekeeper, alledgedly, made the best apple pie this side of the Atlantic.

_I'm sure Xavier wouldn't mind if I caused him some damage, _she thought, before getting up to see whether the beds upstairs were at all serviceable.

**0-0-0-0-0**

Again, Scott was thinking much the same thing, but in a different context; as usual, it was Logan who was annoying him. However, he had more important things to deal with: after a bizarre accident involving hair gel, a hairdryer, static electricity and a sink, he was pulling out his tool kit once again to replace a blackened, warped piece of plastic that once called itself a pipe.

It wasn't that he was particularly bothered about the plumbing aspect of things- after all, accidents happened and Jubilee was being completely apologetic about the whole situation. He was more annoyed by the fact that he'd gone into his shed to get the piece of piping he'd needed, only to find the floor festooned with porn magazines and cigar butts. After suffering a morning with Logan insulting him and being the most unwilling helper he could have possibly asked for, despite the knowledge that he was only doing it to rile him up, it had been the straw that broke the camel's back, and staying away from the man had been his main agenda. Well, that after finding some pain killers for his throbbing headache, but he could survive that.

Scott honestly liked fixing things, anyway. Practicality was one of the many things he'd inherited from his father; in fact, his most complete memory of him was asking what Daddy was doing with the plane, and being lifted up to see everything that was happening. It wasn't a full memory- it tended to peter out halfway through, but it was still enough. He put his tool down and reflected for a moment, before a voice broke the silence.

"What're you doing, bub?" Logan asked, taking the look (or, at least, Cyclops' jaw tightened and his left eyebrow shifted up) that followed without complaint. Scott couldn't be expected to accept his presence willingly, especially after an insult match. Logan was considering sleeping outside to prove that he could, but that would be stupid—Scott's odd sense of humour would probably result in an oversized dog kennel being built on the patio.

"Minor accident with the plumbing," Scott replied stiffly, and continued working. Logan leant around him to inspect what could have been described as entirely unintentional modern art and snorted.

"Doesn't look minor," he observed.

"Relatively speaking, it's inconsequential. We've had to replace all the windows before, and half the East Wing was rebuilt when it went flying."

"Is Xavier mad?" Logan asked cautiously.

"No, he just understands that accidents happen, especially if you have a household full of teenagers with more than risky control over growing mutations," Scott rattled off, and continued working.

"Let me guess; being a boy scout, you've never done anything, right?" Logan said mockingly. Scott chose not to mention the multitude of windows that had been added to the house once he'd started living there, and continued battling with his wrench. "Hey, are you listening?"

"No," he replied flippantly.

"Well, I was about to say that I ain't had anything like that happen to me, and I'm god-knows how old," Logan said.

"Well, you heal yourself; the only reason you're mildly dangerous is the adamantium claws, and you have to think to use those—that said," he added thoughtfully, "if you even think at all."

Scott revelled in Logan baiting. While he himself could take low blows and snipes (he had remarkably thick skin), Wolverine didn't receive them too well, and his reaction to minor things was hilarious, in his opinion. Still, he was expecting a violent reaction, as he found himself pulled up and pushed into the wall, having to step back as he did so.

"Am I dangerous now, bub?" Logan asked, managing to sound menacing while realising that something bizarre had happened- almost like a gust of wind ruffling his hair. The room didn't smell quite right.

He stepped back involuntarily, shaking his head to try and remove the odd lightness that had permeated it, only to find he wasn't tripping over a toolkit, and let go of the front of Scott's shirt, who folded into a heap on the floor.

"You alright?"

"Fine," Scott affirmed falsely. Actually, his head had begun to pound painfully again, in the fashion that thereabout confirmed that he needed medication, and fast.

"Liar," Logan accused, and seeing that he wasn't going to be going anywhere in the near future, said rather weakly, "stay here."

"Wait—no—get back _here_--" Logan ignored the words from the bathroom; other, more pressing matters had come up. There was a louder voice coming from downstairs, sounding as if it were in the midst of an argument.

He descended the stairs quietly, cursing his boots, only to find little change: a few more ornaments, maybe; a fire burned merrily in the grate in a room across the hallway (which was unlikely in the mansion he was used to staying in- though that was probably mainly due to the time of year he'd been there); except for a lone, obviously displeased voice ringing from behind the door that, to him, led to Xavier's office.

"And I thought you rational, Charles—a child, here, of all things! What on earth were you thinking?" Logan stopped, and sat in the stairwell, listening intently.

"It's simply a way of keeping him safe while this inquiry continues, and so the FBI agent in change of the whole case doesn't have to travel to and from the Mid-West for questioning once they've finished collecting evidence there," the professor's voice said, as if resigned to the fact that he wasn't going to get his way _that_ easily. "On top of that, I'm a psychiatrist _and_ a teacher- what could be better for a child like Scott?"

"Scott? Oh, how wonderfully American," the other voice said—Logan couldn't quite pinpoint who it was, despite its familiarity. "I suppose you think you can warp him into something serviceable, other than an off-the-rails juvenile delinquent."

"You've jumped the bandwagon again, you know. There's no evidence to that at all—simply being in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and ending up in awful circumstances. And no, I will not 'warp' him into something serviceable, if you must use that phrase; I'll help him out of the problems he has and I've been assured that, underneath the shell, he's got a heart of gold. It's just been buried deeply, and so I'll be doing everything I can to pull it back out."

"Oh, and you're sure about that?"

"Erik--" Logan suddenly pinpointed the unfamiliar voice and stood up, disgusted, "It is my house, and I'll let who I please into it."

"Which is why you fraternise with the people who could discredit you the quickest- like dear Agent Duncan and Colonel Fury? Really, you couldn't stoop lower."

"For goodness' sake: we've been through this umpteen times and you know we have; you're acting like a spoilt child. How on earth did you live with your own children, if you object to them so much?"

Logan leaned back into the shadows as Magneto stepped out of the office door and into the entrance hall, turning behind him contemptuously.

"I don't know when you'll hear from me next, Charles, but there'll be no sodomy for you tonight." As only Magneto could, he swept from the hallway ostentatiously, letting the door slam behind him as he left the house.

Logan decided, on the spur of the moment, that it was time to go. He hotfooted it up the stairs as quietly as he could, along the corridor and back into the bathroom where Scott was seated still, leant against the wall with his head in one hand while scrabbling in his pockets with the other. Logan was slightly perturbed to see packets of pills lying on the floor around his feet, and squatted down to examine them. Each one was different- painkillers of various kinds, but all separate brands.

"Imodium, dammit…" Scott muttered quietly, finally having run out of places to search.

"What, these?" Logan held up a set of tablets, only to find them snatched from his hand in what seemed to be desperation as Cyclops pulled one from beneath its wrappings and hastily swallowed it, sans water. "Whoa, slow down there," Logan observed, and took a seat on the tiles next to him, watching him as if he were a specimen in the zoo.

It was ten minutes later that there were any signs of movement. "Something weird happened, didn't it?" Scott said flatly.

"Well, duh." Logan would have clapped sarcastically, if his companion didn't look just this side of death warmed up. "Take us back?"

"Yeah," Scott replied, as though trying to assert himself. With effort, he pushed himself up using the wall (his legs were failing him,) and looked down at the tablets covering the floor despairingly.

"I'll handle that," Logan said simply, scooping everything up in one hand and standing up himself, putting one hand in the middle of Scott's back to stop him potentially falling over. "You just get us home… or wherever we were before."

Scott creased his eyebrows together in concentration, put one hand on Logan's arm, and stepped forward. Logan felt a sudden rush of air as they found themselves back in the bathroom with the broken basin.

Of course, not wanting to spend more time in one room with Logan than was physically possible, Cyclops stepped shakily across the room and, using anything he could for support, started to climb up the stairs.

"Cyke, you're going to make yourself even sicker," Logan called up the stairs. There was no reply as Scott continued up the main staircase.

_I can do this on my own, _Scott thought stubbornly. _I can do this on my own…_

**0-0-0-0-0**

A couple of points, really: the update's very, very late, but there's schoolwork for you. In X2/X3 canon, Mystique has left the scene before Jean's death and is 'cured' before Scott and Xavier are put out of the picture; hence, there's no reason for her not to think that they're still alive and kicking. As for migraine medicine (Imodium), it does come in tablet form, not just injections, though the latter kicks in faster.

Again, an apology for the lack of updating, but I've got the next chapter's first draft written, which should signal another update in the next couple of weeks, hopefully. I'm being spasmodic; sorry!


End file.
